| Description |
United States residents achieve insufficient amounts of physical activity. Insufficient physical activity has been linked to a number of poor health outcomes. Community improvements, such as the provision of a new light rail service as part of a complete street construction project, might encourage more physical activity through active transportation. Past research is divided as to whether active transportation is related to walkability measured objectively by trained raters, or to subjectively perceived walkability, or both. This study uses data from the Moving Across Places Study (MAPS) to assess both objective and subjective walkability in relation to active travel to a complete street across two time points. MAPS is an evaluation of a complete street intervention in which a street received a renovation to serve more than just cars in Salt Lake City, Utah. Participants (N=536) were recruited if they lived within 2 km of the new complete street. Physical activity data were measured objectively with GPS and accelerometer units. Objective and subjective measures of walkability were assessed at both times and across two levels of geographic analysis: neighborhood-wide, and route-specific walkability. Results from data analyses of the data show objective measures of walkability were more strongly related to active transportation on the complete street than subjective measures. Objective measures of aesthetics, pedestrian infrastructure, and pedestrian accessibility were all significantly and negatively associated with active transportation on the complete street. Additionally, neighborhood-wide analyses were better at estimating active transportation on the complete street than route-specific walkability. |
